This chapter is 2,656 words long. Pokemon doesn't belong to me, blah blah blah, Nintendo no longer scares me. I'm not sure how often I'll update this, it took over a week to properly write this, mostly due to me loosing motivation after realizing I hadn't had a clue what Pokemon Team Phantom should comprise of. I'm also not proud of it, but it's here, it's mine, and it took way too long. I hope that most of you do enjoy the writing. I had someone else help check it over for any inconsistencies, and hopefully they'll also be able to iron out my biggest flaw(samey dialogue and reactions for characters who are supposed to be radically from eachother.)
Some minor discrepancies probably appeared during the upcoming segment, and those are mostly because I've actually never flown an F4C before, and I'm not exactly a hyperfocused historian on the Vietnam War. I just did some basic research because I thought the F4C was cool, and also because the term "flying brick" was favored over the F-104 "space lawndart" and M60A2 "grounded starship".
I want to give a quick shoutout to War Thunder for igniting a weird interest in the idea of a pilot struggling to take control of an unfavorable scenario and doing drastic actions to evade enemies, AT&T for giving me awful internet connectivity since Friday, and my friend for both reading this heap, the chapter name, and a lot of good feedback.
The situation at hand, needless to say, was not exactly in the favor of the crew of the F-4C. Not ten minutes prior, there were six F-4s in formation, in route to deal with a couple of MiG-17s that were harassing a town by firing inaccurate strafing rounds into the ground, and to ensure air superiority. Now, there was only one Phantom II, the other MiG-17 and 3 MiG-21s chasing them down, the aftermath of a shockingly brutal ambush. The only thing going for them in this situation was the fact that, for the most part, their opponents lacked missiles. For the most part. The radar operator, airman Baxter, screeched in horror, piercing through the noise of multiple alarms going off as a yellow painted K-13 narrowly missed the cracked canopy. The missile must've been defective, as it did not detonate despite its close proximity.
"Could you maybe not shout in my ear? I'm trying to concentrate!" The voice belonged to one Second Lieutenant Mendoza, who was more peeved than frightened by the current situation.
"Right! Right! Sorry… just saw my mom... in heaven," replied the radar operator, between shaky breaths. He steadied himself and tried to get the radar equipment to function, but for some odd reason, it refused to function properly. He banged on the control panel he was assigned to twice, before giving up on the hopes that percussive maintenance could solve the problem. He looked over his left shoulder to attempt to find the MiGs chasing them down, but instead caught a glimpse of the burning wing. "Mendoza, we have a problem! Left wing, we've got a fire!"
"Oh, trust me Baxter, if only you knew how bad it was!" This reply only worried James further, prompting an inquisitive shout, but it didn't really make any real words. Nathan Mendoza got the message regardless. Before elaborating on it, Mendoza shook the right throttle back and forth, watching the RPM gauge for engine 2. The fuel flow remained stuck, and the temperature for engine 2 continued to rise, but engine 2 itself was rapidly losing power. "There's an engine fire," Mendoza reported, sighing as he sharply rolled the craft to the left as the MiG-17 screeched by, guns blazing a little too late. "Engine 2 is out, and I can't cut the fuel. It's why we can't outspeed these MiGs!" The implication was clear to Baxter;they weren't going to be in the air for much longer.
One of the MiG-21s flew right in front of the craft. Mendoza opened fire, and managed to cause the aircraft to begin to smoke, but the SUU-16s ran out of ammunition or jammed. Whichever the case, it wasn't favorable for them. Mendoza let out a few swears as his perfect kill flew in front of him for an extended period of time, matching his speed, as if it was gloating at the victory. Mendoza's hacked off state boiled over into pure rage, only to be prematurely shaken out of by Baxter's voice. "Look, up there! Thunder clouds! We can interfere with their radar if we get into those clouds! It's safety!" Mendoza took a moment to look through the damaged canopy, seeing red lightning from the clouds. Despite any objections he could have, he quickly reminded himself that the mechanism to safely remove the canopy from the plane for the ejection seats had been damaged, and that he had already broken his lever off trying to do so.
"Blood red lightning, how cliche! Clearly a marker for safety!" With a grunt, and the noise of bullets tearing open the side of the plane they were in, Mendoza violently wrestled the flight stick and forced his remaining engine to give all of the power it could squeeze out. The MiG-17 flew past the burning wing moments later.
To this day, the men on the ground have no idea why the MiGs split away, and quit focusing on the Phantom II. Some theorized that, because they were superstitious, that they believed the cloud was an angry god. Others theorized that the new MiG-21s couldn't follow to that altitude, although that was quickly disproven in subsequent battles. Even more still believed that the pilots had been chased into a new superweapon, and exactly one person hypothesized that the multiverse theory had a role to play. While everyone else who wasn't shell shocked initially discredited the last theory, others began to believe something similar may have occurred, when no wreckage was ever found, and no evidence of their capture was ever recorded. Ultimately, it would be that theory proven correct, however no man in military service would ever know the truth. No man, except Nathan Mendoza and James Baxter.
It felt like it had been hours since they had entered the small cloud, but in reality it had only been closer to five minutes. During that time period, they had been struck twice by red lightning, although they were still operational, for now. Without power, their only illumination has been the creeping red streaks across their bullet ridden canopy. Mendoza double checked the throttle. Fuel was still being pumped to the dead engine 2, but engine 1's fuel had been cut off. Despite this, the heat was rising in engine 1. Mendoza groaned, knowing that it was draining their fuel and would soon be a catastrophic problem. The fire on the left wing had been put out when they entered the cloud, but it was clear that it was still leaking fuel from Baxter's angle. There was a slight reprieve in the cockpit, as the alarms were no longer blaring. Mendoza silently thanked God that the initial lightning strike on the plane had disabled the alarms which were messing with his concentration. As it turns out, it's a bit hard to focus on flying when you're hearing at least 6 different alarm tones going off at once.
"Are we sure we're flying level," Baxter inquired, a bit worried. "It just seems a lot bigger than it should be." Mendoza rolled his eyes, checking the instruments and giving him a thumbs up.
"I agree, but that's what the ball says. Completely level. Not even pointing the nose up. If anything, we should be descending… But it almost doesn't feel like it." Mendoza knew better than to trust his own senses and to rely on the mostly disabled instruments, but he couldn't help but notice that it really didn't look or feel like they were going down. Dread began to well up in his chest, but he quickly pushed it away. They were flying level, he was sure of it. They were even losing speed. The instruments couldn't be wrong, could they? Well, they had been hit by lightning twice, but that hadn't stopped Mendoza from getting accurate readings last time, but this time was different. This time, they had flown into a storm cloud that they didn't even know existed twenty minutes prior, with no storms forecasted in the area, and the lightning was as red as pig's blood rather than the whitish blue that it normally was. The doubts he was having summoned forth even more dread from the void, but he quickly pushed it away again. Outside of the M60A2, which he had the unfortunate experience of having a friend get injured by, and the F-104 which had claimed the lives of his fellow airmen, there was no way the military would field faulty equipment… Right? "Baxter, give me some motivation," he forcefully demanded from the crew member behind him.
"I er... Hang on..." Baxter took a moment to survey his surroundings, and to come up with some encouraging things to say to Mendoza. "Well, it looks like the wing's no longer on fire, the MiGs have stopped chasing us, and we're alive."
Mendoza didn't look too pleased at Baxter's response, but only gave a hum of affirmation that he heard Baxter. It wasn't like Baxter was going to see him anyways, and even if he did, the oxygen mask thankfully hid his frown. Mendoza looked over the control panel again. Baxter must have just looked out of the canopy as there was really nothing for him to do. His instruments had stopped working entirely on the second lightning strike, leaving just Mendoza with the few instruments he had to watch over with a careful eye. Mendoza looked again at the engine temperatures. Engine 1 was still rising but Engine 2 looked like it had peaked and was now slowly dropping. "Here's some actual cheerful news, the engine fire looks like it's out, assuming the temperature gauge hasn't just melted. And look, ahead! I can see light, looks like we're actually leaving this damn cloud!" He sounded unusually excited about leaving the cloud of blood red lightning, but then again, his perception of time had been altered greatly, and he had gotten bored of looking at the storm clouds surrounding them.
As they broke the cloud cover, however, it dawned on them that something was very wrong. The first of many problems was the terrain itself. It wasn't like they were in a mountain, or even hills, but it certainly wasn't tropical in the slightest either. It reminded Baxter of the oak trees back home. The second problem that presented itself was just how close they were to the ground. They were barely 45 yards above the ground, and descending at a worrying pace. The final problem, which went unnoticed by the crew as they focused on the pressing issue of trying not to crash into the trees just 10 feet below them as they descended was that their bodies were slowly engulfed by arcs of red energy, their body shifting ever so slightly every time a new arc appeared. First, it started with small sparks, but then it became more and more obvious, although neither noticed as one had their eyes closed, grasping a small metal crucifix on a chain tightly, desperately praying to the heavenly lord for them to make it out alive, and the other focused on finding a clearing to land in as they did not have enough time to get the remaining engine on again. That clearing would come in the form of a wide, pristine river with no trees to the left and the right, albeit it was a fair bit of a distance away from them.
"Brace for a rough landing!" Mendoza swallowed some spit, his mouth turning dry as he did so. He felt itchy, but he wasn't about to let that distract him from the goal. "This won't be any runway you've ever experienced!" Mendoza cleared his throat after shouting, and took a deep breath, focusing his thoughts solely on landing. Yellow fur sprung up in minor patches around Mendoza's skin as he attempted to guide the aircraft to relative safety. Baxter didn't take his advice, and continued praying to the father above, his face slowly turning a distinctly red shade. The Phantom II responded poorly to its pilot's commands, lethargically turning towards the distant river. Mendoza saw a particularly tall tree he didn't see before, and tried to roll the aircraft out of the way of it, but it was too late as the tree clipped the plane, tearing off one of the angled horizontal stabilizers in the process. Baxter was startled out of his praying by the noise, but Mendoza said absolutely nothing as he immediately regained control of the craft despite the loss of an elevator. He probably would have remarked about how strong the tree was, had he not been busy trying to keep the aircraft up for long enough that they could land in some water. After a few more moments, he quit turning to bank to the right, making sure he was lined up to the river, and then he let his craft descend, attempting to deploy his flaps. Moments later, they came to a loud smash, and both, despite being aware of the need to brace, hit their respective control systems, knocked out simultaneously.
An Aggron continued to chase down the unidentifiable flying object above them at a terrifying pace, bluish silver metal shining in the patterns of light underneath the forest floor. Roughly twenty minutes ago, this Aggron was investigating an unusual storm cloud that had cropped up out of nowhere. Expecting a criminal or a new mystery dungeon, they had full intentions to fight it. However, what occurred was even weirder. Something that only vaguely resembled a Skarmory, or maybe a Pidegotto, came flying out of the storm cloud, a duo of smoke trails being left behind in its wake. There was a deafening splash just behind the clearing.
The Aggron broke the clearing just fast enough to see the glass-like material on a metal frame shatter and send two blurs out into the water, as the rest of the object kept bouncing and continued to break apart on every impact, bits of steel flying everywhere. Whatever the object was, it was either dead or just broken apart now. She took a step back, wondering what to do. She thought about reporting it back to her team, but wondered what they would do with that kind of information. They were all once criminals, so maybe they could gleam useful items off of it, instead of having to go to the town where they were all treated with great suspicion. "Messer could use a break like that," she quietly said. However, her muses were stopped dead in their tracks as they saw two bright red flashes under the water. Without really thinking about it, she waded into the water, being submerged as she went to investigate. What she saw shocked her enough to forget her duties for a brief moment;two Pokemon limply on the ground, completely unconscious but relatively unscathed despite the sharp metal debris swiftly drifting from above. Recollecting herself, she trudged forward towards waterlogged beings, a piece of flat metal torn off from above clanking off of her armor. She couldn't quite identify them, especially under the distorting water, but she had her guesses on both of them.
She dragged them both out of the water, dumping them out on the river bank so that she could clean her feet of the mud. Sure enough, it left even more questions for the Aggron. The first one she picked up was a Ninetales, which confused her even more. Ninetales weren't native to the area, and the only Ninetales she knew about, who was a part of team Shooting Star, had sailed the seas to get here. The Absol was not as weird to her, as team Meteor had one and they were quite common in the nearby mountains, but the red coloration of the face, horn and paw pads confused her, as well as the way their fur seemed to almost shimmer in the light. Not to mention, the red flashes and the fact that they were still alive.
Questions flooded her mind as she picked them back up and began to haul them back to their headquarters upstream, with very few answers in return. She did her best not to let it bother her though, reasoning with herself that the answers would arrive from the Pokemon that she just saved, once they woke up. She just didn't know how long it would be until these two Pokemon would awake again. She quickened her pace upon dully feeling something far thicker than water dribbling down her back, eyes widening as she realized she had forgotten they were bleeding.